


as the seconds pass, count them out

by jazzfic



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-13
Updated: 2011-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:23:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it's Sheldon who reaches out first, but it's definitely Penny who leads them away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as the seconds pass, count them out

There's no reason behind this. If she happens to see the back of his head at a Vegas hotel, his hand guiding a woman with a flawless bob and dark-rimmed glasses into a waiting elevator, then fine, it happens. She can deal. She can pay the desk clerk and haul her bags to the nearest cab. It's not as if she hasn't messages to return, lines to learn or a thin vibration coming from her back pocket: _where are u, pen? call me._

Yeah.

It's not as if there's a push-shove deep in her belly, the fluttering heavy knowledge that she's late, late, _fuck_ \--she doesn't want this. Not now.

Penny dials.

"Hi...hey, yeah, so I didn't get it," she says. "No. Well, I've got some stuff to finish up, but I'm sort of done here, so..." She looks over again as the elevator doors close. Superman t-shirt. He's got to be thirty-seven or eight now, at least, and he's still to get out of that kid-uniform that sent her mad at least once a week. Eight fifteen, she thinks, eight fifteen on the dot.

She listens as the voice on the other end rasps in her ear, on the fringes of that raw shadow that means any second, count them out, he's going to start yelling; and count it out, she's going to yell right on back.

The woman with the perfect bob is just as tall, just as angular. They stand shoulder to shoulder and don't exchange a word. Penny stares hard, willing him to turn, look through the gap and catch her eyes across the bad carpets and golden lights.

The voice is gone. She holds the phone to her ear, waiting for the dial tone to drown out the catch-cry, the weak pulse of her life. It doesn't.

 

 

They make it seven blocks downtown, seven blocks and she says, "Turn back."

"You forget somethin', lady?" The driver's eyes flash in the rear view mirror. Kind. Unassuming. She's just another fare.

"Maybe," she says.

The lights are red all the way. _But you have the conn._ She wonders who's doing the driving now. Someone else, there's always someone else, in the end.

 

 

Ten minutes.

"Do you want me to call him again?" asks the clerk. "I understand Dr. Cooper's in great demand, but..."

"No, it's okay. I'll wait."

There's a bar, a dark corner. Yeah, she can wait.

 

 

"Penny?"

His voice has lost the eager, puppy-dog bounce that always made her think of that little boy, chased by a chicken up a tree but blind to sarcasm and feeling. He'd lived in his own world and was happy there. She could cheerfully strangle him the days he'd told her that acting was a dead-end choice and the highest point she'd likely know was that brief reign as the Corn Queen, a lifetime long gone. He made her laugh, once.

"Sheldon."

His hair is longer, just a little, barely-visible grey hairs in the wisps that curl over his ears. His eyes have creases at the edges, and there's a line above his nose that could have only come from years of frowning. They're drenched with more colour than she remembers, though. And intense, the only movement in an otherwise expressionless face.

"Still wearing the layers, I see." She smirks into her glass. He won't sit, she knows.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Penny tips her head back, feeling the burn. She blinks at the barman and is promptly (or subtly, hell, he's dressed well, doesn't want to frown at a blond nothing) ignored, so she sighs and spins the glass. "No, Sheldon, why would you. Why would you ever change?"

His breath is audible, predictable. His response is not.

"Because you didn't."

"She's pretty, Sheldon. Pretty and smart. Hey, you struck gold there."

"That was not part of my consideration."

She laughs, sharply, glances once at the ring on his finger. "Liar," she murmurs, and grips the glass.

There's a shout across the bar, girls in strapped dresses, long fake lashes. The barman passes on by, time stills as the seconds pass, _count them out, count them--_

 _I have the fucking conn,_ she thinks. Her hand drops to her stomach, lower. The movement there is raw and makes her shake.

Maybe it's Sheldon who reaches out first, but it's definitely Penny who leads them away.

 

 

They don't bother with the light.

She can't get to him fast enough. She's pushing and if things tear or fly apart then that's the deal, that's what it takes to make him understand. Barely undressed and he's jerking into her already, hard against the bed. This is his room ( _hers, too_ ) but it's Penny who makes him turn, shoves him down and crawls into his lap. And then--then it's a whirl of skin on skin and up, down, thrust, jerkoff, liar,

 _coward_.

When he comes she kisses his jaw, scrapes her teeth across skin that tastes of shaving cream and soap. She feels herself building through pain and the memory of why and how she'd said _no, no I don't love you_ , when all she wants to say is _you could have been everything; we could have made it work._

If it weren't so dark, she might see where her hands leave bruises on his neck.

If they'd never done this before, she might even care.

 

 

There's no reason behind this. So she leaves him on the bed, balls the superman shirt into her purse and walks out without a word.

 

 

She can smell him on her skin. Tells herself the tears are his, because she'll be fucked if they're her own.

In the elevator, Penny presses up.


End file.
